The parallel universes of quantum physics and theatre are about to collide as scientists on the French-Swiss border attempt once more to recreate the Big Bang.

With uncanny timing, an Irish play about the experiment at the Cern laboratory which is designed to explain the universe's origins will be staged while the real life drama of unlocking the cosmos' mysteries takes place 300ft under the earth on the outskirts of Geneva.

The Gentlemen's Tea Drinking Society throws four men together in a single room, one of whom is a genius scientist with a secret to reveal - he has discovered the Higgs boson or the so-called "God Particle".

One of the main purposes of the largest scientific experiment ever conducted is to find that elusive particle which physicists believe pervades all space and unites all other particles. They will try this at the Cern lab using the Large Hadron Collider which took 30 years to build, cost more than $10 billion and runs underground for 27 kilometres.

The play is the brainchild of Richard Dormer who shot to fame in Ireland, Britain and the United States a couple of years ago for his one-man portrayal of the triumphs and trials of Ulster snooker legend Alex "Hurricane" Higgins.

In a dank room adjacent to St Patrick's Catholic Church in Belfast's Donegall Street, Dormer explained that his interest in the hunt for Higgs boson was inspired by a Belfast wall mural.

"I used to cycle past a gable wall end at a pathway near the Lagan river and there was this new mural that caught my attention. It said, 'How can quantum gravity explain the origins of the universe?' It really got my mind going about the subject as I have always loved science and science fiction."

The Cern scientists initial failure to trigger a Big Bang last September has turned out to be fortuitous for Dormer. A second attempt is scheduled for early spring, when the play goes on tour.

"We don't know what they (the scientists) will find, but this play has taken reality and is just running with it and asking what if. Hopefully, this is art running in parallel with reality," Dormer said.

Asked about the lack of technological props and backdrops, the play's director Rachel O'Riordan said the production was a drama about science, not about putting scientific experiments on the stage.

"The last thing you want to do is put something so complicated on stage that it alienates an audience. Most people have an awareness about Cern. You are talking to someone who failed their maths GCSE. All this stuff about the universe makes Newton seem simple."

The experiment triggered worldwide fears that the Large Hadron Collider would cause a black hole and swallow up the world. O'Riordan added that audiences needn't fear that the play will create a tear in space or time.

Belfast born DJ David Holmes, who produced the music for Ocean's Twelve and Hunger, has written the play's soundtrack.

Given that his most famous character before now was a chain smoking, hard drinking, cocaine snorting snooker player, how does Dormer switch to playing a wheelchair-bound scientist who has cracked a key secret of the cosmos? "Actually, they are very similar, as Alex was a scientist in his own right," says Dormer. "He knew what geometry was. He thought about the positioning of objects in space. His character was also a genius."

The Gentlemen's Tea-Drinking Society holds its premiere on 4 February at the Old Museum until 14th and then goes on tour in Ireland until 10 March. It then opens at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow before moving to London.